Posted by Budgie at May 20, 2005 05:28 PM

Another Friday and another couple of tracks to settle you into the weekend...

Track : AVIA - "REBIRTH"

Making up compilations for friends can be both an enjoyable and mind numbing experience. You've got to get the fine line right between stuff they won't know, stuff they do and stuff you put on just to freak them out. Then you've got the hassle of getting the running order right and just what exactly is going to be the opening track?

"Rebirth", for me, was a track that for quite some time I bunged on a lot of dance compilations as the opener. I had taken ages to get my hands on it so I was making sure I was getting my pennies worth by putting it on as many CD comps as possible.

It came to my attention when Gilles Peterson opened up his then Wednesday night "Worldwide" show with it a couple of times. At the time it struck me as odd as it wasn't the sort of thing I would associate Gilles with, but it fair caught my attention as it was a great opening track. After months of fruitless trawling around record shops for it I finally gave up. Then by chance, long after I had forgotten about it, it turned up on Rob Da Bank's second compilation for his "Sunday Best" club. Granted, Rob didn't see it as the great opening track I thought it was and tucked it near the end of the album, but I was just happy to finally get my mits on it.

In essence the track could be classed as Ambient House, but it takes a while for a 4/4 beat to kick in. Before it does though, you are treated with long drawn out ambient chords, loops of drum fills crashing all over the place and the odd bit of spoken word from a guy reflecting on his life.

I find it quite a strange record, even though it is quite conventional, and I can't quite put my finger onto why I think so. But if you're making up a compilation of leftfield dance stuff, you can do no wrong in starting it with this tune.

Track : SODA INC. - "MORNING PRAYER"

Last week, in work, I was handed a CD called "Full Moon" by Soda Inc. by a colleague who knew that it would tick all the right boxes for me. He was right (cheers, johnnyboy!). It was promptly bunged onto my iPod and I have listened to it all this week - aside from the moments of madness when I was frying my brain with that Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds album... (cheers, SVC for the heads up on that one!).

I don't know much about Soda Inc except that I think they come from Germany and, going on the "Full Moon" CD, I can tell you that they make top quality atomspeheric and deep Tech House music. Their label, Plastic City, call it Neo-Trance and I can kind of see where they are coming from, but even though it uses some of Trance's musical conventions it's just too slow for Trance.

"Morning Prayer" clocks in around about the 120bpm mark but what it lacks in speed it sure as hell makes up for in mood. Plenty of layers with things going on, the odd loop of singing and plenty of dubby effects to keep me grinning from ear to ear.

If you like this track, you'll love the album.

Go Visit : Avia
Go Visit : Soda Inc.

Go Buy : Various Artitsts - Sunday Best Two
Go Buy : Soda Inc. - Full Moon

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie.